For the nation

A day to remember when 6527 sang the national anthem.

VISAKHAPATNAM:

A total of 6,527 children belonging to several schools in the city by singing “Janaganamana” made an attempt to break the earlier Guinness Book of World Records of 5,847 by Pakistan, at the sprawling Visakhapatnam Port Stadium recently.

The most people singing a national anthem programme “Naa Desam” and “Naa Janaganamana” organised on the occasion of Children's Day by the local SIRI Foundation and Silicon Andhra and supported by Visakhapatnam Port Trust, BSNL Visakhapatnam Telecom District and Vijay Nirman Company drew tremendous response from school children.

Finally recorded

The exercise started with a four time rehearsals of the national song “Janaganamana.” The song was finally recorded after the four rehearsals. The convenor of the programme Nanduri Prabhakar announced that the Guinness Book representatives had registered the participation of 6,527 children in the most people singing national anthem programme. The overall participation including teachers and parents was 8000 odd people.

A spirit of patriotism pervaded the grounds with children and young girls holding national flags. Vijay Nirman Company managing director Vijay Kumar and BSNL General Manager P. Nagaraju praised Mr. Prabhakar for undertaking the challenging task of breaking the Pakistani record and kindling patriotic fervour in the children.

Mr. Prabhakar surprised everyone by playing a CD which contained the original voice of Rabindranath Tagore singing the national anthem. He also announced that he would organise another programme involving 50,000 school children at a later date.